CO129-330 - Public Offices - 1905 — Page 334

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confined entirely to protecting the principal towns

and villages in the disturbed area from rebel in-

cursions. As we hear weekly of fresh towns fall-

ing into the enemy's hands they certainly do not

appear to be attaining their object.

However it

is impossible to know with any certainty what the

real position of affairs is, and it is quite con-

ceivable that the Viceroy whose reputation is at

stake has some scheme of conciliation in view which

will give at least temporary peace to the country.

I am informed that the Viceroy has now in the

field with him over thirty thousand more or less

foreign drilled troops, mostly imported from the

Yangtze Provinces and an almost equal number of lo-

cal levies. The latter are quite unreliable and

are used only to garrison the towns in which they

are raised. It is the opinion nevertheless of

many officials in Kuanghai that the operations

against the rebels would be more successful if the

services of troops from other provinces were dis-

At

dispensed with altogether and only local men employed

as soldiers, letting the heads of the various clans

provide contingenta but at Government expense.

the present crisis the experiment would be extremely

dangerous, but it is certain that the imported troops

are as great a curse to the natives of the disturbed

districts as the rebels and are far more cordially

hated. The Viceroy's strict injunctions against

looting have apparently effected little improvement

in the conduct of his soldiers.

It is not altogether easy to understand from what

source the rebels derive the funds which have enabled

them to keep up their long and successful resistance

to the Government. It has been estimated that there

are between twenty and thirty thousand of them in the

field, all of them armed with modern rifles and using

even smokeless gunpowder. Fortunately they are divi-

ded into numerous bands which is the only reason which

has prevented the present movement from developing

into a second Taiping Rebellion. The possibility

pensed

that